Farmers enjoy urban life after relocation

Each workday, 48-year-old Li Yingmu rides his motorcycle on the 10-minute commute to his job at a factory in Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area. It's a short trip for Li, but a far cry from the challenging life he led not so long ago as a corn and wheat farmer in the nearby fields.

Those fields are gone now - absorbed by one of Liangjiang New Area's many new development projects - and Li is one of thousands of rural residents who have relocated as Chongqing expands to become a major trade crossroads.

It's a big task to balance urban and rural development on such a large scale, acknowledges Ling Yueming, director general of the Administrative Committee of the New Area.

How to best do so is "a very complex question", considering that 20 million of Chongqing's 30 million people live in rural areas. "We must help farmers who move to the city adapt to urban life. And we must make sure that those who move from rural areas have jobs and a place to live," Ling says.

In addition to those who relocate, Chongqing must also accommodate the natural flow of the rural population into the city, as well as the many migrants who earlier left Chongqing and are returning now that the area is thriving, Ling observes.

By the year 2020, the total population of Liangjiang New Area is expected to reach 5 million, of which more than 1 million will be rural migrants from other cities and provinces, according to Ling's office. The number of people expected to relocate from rural areas of Chongqing is expected to reach 380,000.

Before his relocation to the Hehe Community in the New Area, factory employee Li worked long hours as a farmer. He is now a truck driver for Chongqing Brilliant Elevator.

Li Feng, 28, also works at the elevator factory. When he relocated, the government provided a month's training and helped Li obtain his present position as a forklift operator, a job that pays 3,000 yuan ($480) per month.

Adapting to city life was not that difficult, he says, as the government solved two important problems for him - stable employment and good housing.

"Life here is much better. I don't spend as much time working as when I was a farmer. I enjoy more leisure time," he says.

His standard of living is also much higher, says Li, who, like Li Yingmu, is a former corn and wheat farmer.

"Our income as farmers for the whole family was not so high - 10,000 yuan a year," Li says. The combined income of Li, his wife and parents - who live with him in the nearby Hehe Community - is now 7,000 yuan per month.

Liangjiang New Area director general Ling says that of the 137,000 rural people who have been relocated so far during the development (the figure includes children and the elderly), 73,000 are former farmers who have found new employment. Only 7,300 have not found jobs, mostly because their age makes it difficult for them to find work.

"But we have not given up on those unable to find work - we help them find government positions such as management of green belts, traffic coordination and street cleaning. As long as we have jobs, we'll fill them with people from the area who have been relocated," says Ling, adding that Liangjiang New Area also intends to also let the market guide people to jobs. "We need to develop local economies, create more tax sources and more jobs."

Ling explains that the government is holding match-up meetings between enterprises and farmers who have been relocated and are looking for work. In addition, it is paying organizations to help provide a bridge between farmers and new enterprises. Last year, Chongqing registered 735 such enterprises.

The government also provides job training for the former farmers and public housing for as little as 300 to 400 yuan per month.

Li Yingmu prefers his new urban life to toiling in the fields. What he enjoys most is the stable income - he earns more than 3,000 yuan per month as a truck driver. But there's so much more to like, he says. "The environment is good: We have a clean and clear atmosphere and good air. The standard of living is better too: We can use gas for cooking, which we did not have as farmers."

The truck driver acknowledges that not everyone prefers the lifestyle after relocation, however. "Some of the senior citizens who were farmers are now too old to work and they miss the old life - they want to grow food. The younger farmers want to make more money."

Forklift operator Li says there's another reason he was glad to leave the rural life behind. "Now we don't have to worry about the harvest."

Contact the writers through jameshealy@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 07/18/2014 page19)